Posted!

Join the Conversation

Comments

Welcome to our new and improved comments, which are for subscribers only.
This is a test to see whether we can improve the experience for you.
You do not need a Facebook profile to participate.

You will need to register before adding a comment.
Typed comments will be lost if you are not logged in.

Please be polite.
It's OK to disagree with someone's ideas, but personal attacks, insults, threats, hate speech, advocating violence and other violations can result in a ban.
If you see comments in violation of our community guidelines, please report them.

Johnson City woman, 90, was classy and fabulous matriarch who 'brought joy to everything'

From her mother, Patricia learned to cook, clean, sew and can. Later in life she'd use those skills to carry on their family's traditions, and everyone looked forward to the ethnic meals that always signaled the holiday season: a pot of holupki or brown chicken rice, homemade kolacki, butchta or jellied butter cookies she called "stuck together cookies."

Patricia Tomic loved to be surrounded by family.(Photo: Photo provided)

As a teenager, Patricia hopped on her bicycle with a load of beauty supplies to deliver to the shop downtown. She also spent summers working at the shop. She was a manicurist, then a hair washer and eventually a hair dresser who handled everything from cuts to color to perms.

During World War II, Patricia wrote letters to servicemen and helped with the rationing of raw materials like metal and rubber.

After the war, Patricia met Edward Joseph Tomic Jr., a veteran preparing to take advantage of the GI bill at Colgate University. They'd marry shortly after he graduated in 1950, and after a few years of saving up while living with Patricia's parents, the couple purchased a home on the Johnson City's North Side, where they'd raise their three children.

Teaching was in her heart

"She grew up doing hair, and then she went into what was really in her heart," Callahan said, "which was teaching."

She was young at heart and loved children. She was good at communicating, from years as a hair dresser, and was naturally compassionate. She also had a great sense of humor, and a laugh her granddaughter, Alice Kiereck said, "could light up a room."

"I am grateful that Grandma was at my school; she encouraged me and helped me through my challenges," said Patricia's granddaughter, Jessica, who was a special education student at the school. "She helped me be the best student that I could be."

After she retired, nearly 30 years later, Patricia still took great pleasure in chatting with former students, now adults, and the family members of her former coworkers.

She'd even bring home worksheets and books, so her granddaughter Alice could pretend to be a teacher in Patricia's basement "school." Those hours of play inspired Alice, and she'd later pursue a teaching career of her own.

Never complaining about aches or pains, Patricia joined in on every shopping trip and adventure. She cut, dyed and styled her own hair, kept her home neat and tidy and during the holidays, she'd cook all her signature dishes.

Patricia loved to have her family around her. Her home was where her grandchildren went sledding in winter, where they enjoyed the breaded chicken tenders she cooked for every meal, no matter what else she might be preparing that night, and where Alice could always find a tub of Perry's peppermint stick ice cream — her favorite — in the freezer at Christmastime.

"Watching her children, grandchildren and her great-granddaughter grow up was far and beyond her greatest joy in life," Alice said.

Hers was a home filled with laughter, and it was often Patricia's laugh the family would hear the most, unabashed and wholehearted. She was always smiling too, Alice said, and cataract surgery had left her eyes "with a little extra twinkle."

"She always joked about it, but that twinkle perfectly represented her personality," she said.